Flatirons Outdoor Classroom Summer Workshop

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

Funding is requested in support of a summer, 2003 workshop at the Flatirons Outdoor Classroom, for selected teachers within the Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colorado. Sixteen teachers (drawn from elementary, middle, and high schools in the district) would spend two weeks at the Flatirons Outdoor classroom. In the mornings, teachers would participate in lectures and discussion on topics in geology, hydrology, botany, biology, geography, water politics, and ethics, led by local experts in these respective fields. In the afternoon, teachers will work in teams to devise curricular materials for primary and secondary school students that relate the material covered in the mornings to the distinctive interdisciplinary capacities of this outdoor space. The goals of the workshop would be: 1) to provide district teachers with training in the Earth and environmental sicneces, science policy, and selected areas of the humanities so that they could design curricular materials that make effective use of the Flatirons Outdoor Classroom. 2) Through doing so, to create pedagogical materials on interdisciplinary educational education that can be disseminated regionally and nationally in a variety of formats (such as publications, conference presentations, museum exhibits, and the internet. 3) To disseminate accounts of the pedagogical possibilities of the Flatirons Outdoor Classroom, so that this model may be adapted and adopted by communities nationwide.